This invention generally relates to packaging for food products, especially food product strips. More particularly, the packaging combines a food-containing flexible pouch within a tent-style carton. While the flexible pouch has a width which is consistent along its height, the tent-style carton is not uniform in width along its height. Instead, the tent-style carton is wider along its top portion than along its bottom portion. This allows the combination pouch and carton to maintain display space size commonality with the pouch itself in order to accommodate the combination carton and pouch into upright display merchandisers for packaged products which do not include the carton.
Upright display merchandisers for food products have very strict display face dimension limits. In order to avoid wasting space, the width of each product must divide evenly into the total shelf facing width. For example, a shelf having a total facing width of 48 inches will evenly accommodate six rows of food packages if those rows each fit within a maximum facing width of eight inches. Of course, a width not much less than eight inches is also desired in order to make maximum use of the available space. What cannot be tolerated in this situation, however, is having the food package require even only slightly more than eight inches of lateral shelf space or merchandiser facing width.
In order to avoid disruption of neighboring packages when a package is removed from one row, a typical upright display merchandiser has a plurality of demarcation members which specifically define the respective rows. These can take the form of self-contained organizers. In their simplest form, these demarcation members take the form of dividers which are positioned at each evenly spaced location along the length of the shelf. In the example of the merchandiser shelf which has a total facing width of 48 inches, each such divider or wall would be spaced every eight inches (on centers) in order to accommodate six rows of packages. In this instance, pouches are sized to fit within the available space, which is less than eight inches in view of the thickness of the dividers. Accordingly, the pouches are sized to fit within the available space. The flexibility of the pouches provides some extra accommodation to these size constraints, especially with respect to the lower portions of the pouches which do not have extra bulk and/or stiffness typically associated with closure members at the top portion of the pouch. The advantage of this accommodative aspect of flexible pouches is forfeited when the pouch is placed within an outer carton which maintains its dimensions unless subjected to extraordinary and damaging forces.
In most upright display merchandiser situations, package depth also is limited. Because of this, it is often not possible to make a packaged product which is narrower and proportionally deeper in order to accommodate the same weight of food product in a narrower package. In addition, for economic, capital equipment and convenience reasons, a manufacturer will have a strong preference for using the same pouch size, whether intended for a pouch-only package or for a package having the pouch positioned within a carton.
This accommodation issue is rendered more difficult when the upper portion of the pouch designed for gaining access to the food product includes a strip such as a zipper-type strip which permits access into and reclosure of the pouch cavity. Strips of this type significantly decrease flexibility of the upper portion of the pouch. They often also add thickness to the pouch, requiring a greater volume in order to accommodate the strip, such as between opposing panels of a carton. Because of this added bulk and stiffness, the external dimensions of a strip-containing upper portion of a pouch must be maintained and slightly exceeded in the combination package so that the strip-containing upper portion of the pouch is comfortably enclosed fully within the top portion of the package.
The present invention addresses the difficulties and concerns which occur when a pouch which is designed to maximize space available in an upright display merchandiser is to be made available in a combined package wherein the pouch is positioned within a non-flexible carton which is rigid or semi-rigid, at least in a longitudinal orientation. These difficulties and concerns are addressed without having to modify the size or shape of the pouch or the weight, sizing and orientation of the food within the pouch.